Thursday, April 12, 2012

EASY READER: A question for e-reader owners: other than books which aren't available electronically for your device, for what books to do you still purchase the hard copy rather than download? Reason I'm asking is that with Robert Caro's LBJ IV on the near horizon, I'm torn between two instincts—continuing my hardcover set of this historic series, versus saving myself the schlep of a 736 page, 2.8 pound tome.

related: Esquire's Chris Jones, on Robert Caro. "It's not just Caro's single-mindedness that makes repeating The Years of Lyndon Johnson a modern impossibility. The world outside his office has changed in the nearly four decades since he began. Publishers might like to pretend that they're different from other manufacturers, or at least that they're farms rather than factories, but they're not. Books like Caro's don't make corporate sense anymore, if they ever did." (HT: @KenTremendous)

51 comments:

1. Books written by someone I know. It's not a book so much then as a keepsake.2. Books I want autographed by the author3. Books I'm reading for bookclub because I find it easier to physically dogear and mark up a hard copy.4. Anything likely to have lots of illustrations, photographs, maps, etc. My e-reader is e-ink and doesn't handle graphics that well. It made reading Gene Weingarten's essay on Garry Trudeau (included in his collection The Fiddler on the Subway) somewhat frustrating because I couldn't read any of the reproduced strips.

My list mirrors Watts's. I find that books are increasingly using tools other than pure text, and those can be irritating to e-read, even on the iPad (case in point: the PowerPoint section in A Visit from the Goon Squad). That said, I also buy random books in print because I just happen to be taken by the moment when I see them in the store. (My advice? You do well for yourself, and you aren't a spendthrift. This one time, buy the hardcover for the collection AND download for ease of reading.)

On this topic: One of my very very best friends (and his wife and kids) gave me "IQ84" in hardback for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. I was very grateful, and would not look a gift horse in the mouth, but if ever there were a book meant for Kindle...

I really wish publishers would wise up and include a free or very-low-priced ($1-3) ebook download when you buy a physical book. I would love to have a full set of Song of Ice and Fire on my bookshelves, but I've bought all of them as ebooks, and I'm not paying twice.

I laugh only because I work in the realm of academic libraries where there's all kinds of publisher shenanigans to force libraries to buy both print and electronic formats, paying twice.

My favorite? The publishers who put rolling walls on journals, meaning you can buy the electronic for everything but the last year, so that you still have to keep your print subscription to have access to the latest issues. Because OF COURSE students and professors will be delighted to COME INTO THE LIBRARY to get the newest, latest research.

Don't get me started on academic journal publishing, though. I have a comedy bit with a "Mr. Elsevier" bragging while explaining the whole scam to a disbelieving Satan.

Agree with Watts and everyone else, but I'd add that also buy hardcovers of classics or series I want in my permanent library (which right now only consists of several bookcases, but in my head will one day be a dedicated room w/built-in shelving, a secret passage, and a leather chair overlooking the English countryside).

Only Watts's #4, and then only begrudgingly. I tried to buy Baseball Prospectus in ebook format this year, and was frustrated by the poor formatting of the tables. However, if it was only a slight frustration instead of a major one I would have kept the ebook.

Primarily only if a) it's part of a series I already have part of in hardcopy, and/or b) anything where I want to potentially share it with others. The wife and I share an Amazon account so we don't have sharing problems between our two Kindles, but if you want to lend to others, Amazon's system (primarily enforced by the publishers) is horrible.

Additionally, I'll tend toward harccopies for computer learning books since I find them easier to work with and a computer at the same time. Additionally, for RPG-related stuff I'll do hardcopy because computers and devices can be distracting when actually playing.

I could argue for picturebooks, comics, graphic novels and the like, but there are ways to get those electronically and full-color (and often these days, with interaction).

My impression, and this is just from reading articles about it and zero inside info, is that at least a few publishers have actively sought to do bundling, but retailers were not interested in implementing a system to do so. At least not yet.

I do hope it's on its way soon, myself. It's still very early days when it comes to ebooks.

Exactly--there've now become so many options with movies, each with slightly different pricing--for instance, The Muppets was offered in DVD only/Blu-Ray only/DVD and Blu-Ray combo pack/DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital Copy/DVD, Blu-Ray, and Digital Copy of Soundtrack and Film versions, I believe.

I read the hard copy when there's something graphic in the text that would make it hard to read on an e-reader. So I borrowed the hard copy of "A Visit from the Goon Squad" because people here told me about the Power Point chapter. And I got the hardcover of "Bossypants" because I downloaded the free sample on my Nook and saw there were pictures. (It turned out the pictures came through almost as well on the Nook as in the book, and the pictures were only in the first chapter, but I'm still glad I own it.)

I also tend to buy a book if I think it's going to be something I'll want to loan out afterwards, especially to my mom, who doesn't have an e-reader.

And books I want to save as a keepsake. I read all three "Hunger Games" books either on the Nook or borrowed, but I'm thinking of buying them to have for my collection. (Seeing as how my husband and I are engaged in a project to pare down our books, he won't be thrilled by this.)

This is a major barrier of entry for me into ereaders. I love to reread my books, so it would be great to be able to read books on an ereader that I already own in my physical library.

True die-hard fans of A Song of Ice and Fire buy both versions, apparently. While waiting in line last summer to purchase a hard copy and book-signing ticket, there were several people also in line who had downloaded the ebook at midnight and were reading it there. I was jealous, but am too cheap to buy both. The $1-3 idea is something I could get behind.

Similar to Watts; also:1) Textbooks/research-related material (how-to guides for STATA, books I want to mark up physically)2) Religious texts - e.g.: I bought the New American Haggadah to mark up and share with family

I am trying very hard these days to NOT buy paper books. There are too many books where I've read them, and they're ok but not fabulous, and then I can't bring myself to get rid of them.

So now I'm mostly borrowing from the library, and then giving myself permission to buy the book in paper if I loved it so I can have it to keep. I do my best to buy used books whenever possible (which leads to me wandering around used bookstores with my GoodReads "to read" list open, and getting funny looks). If I can't get it from the library or find it used, then I buy whatever the cheapest thing is, which is often an e-book.

I second Russ on the download to read quickly (and more easily given the weight) and buy a physical copy for the collection. I'll be doing that for LBJ IV, and I have done it for some other things. I buy physical only where I know I love the author and will want to read again or it is a subject matter where I have a collection going. I buy e-reader for everything else.

On the one hand, most of the books that I'd like to own in hardcover are also the books I'd rather read on Kindle so as to be able to carry them around. If hardcovers or trade paperbacks included an e-book copy (or even a code to download an inexepsnive, <$2 e-copy), I would buy more hardcover books.

I didn't like the narrator at first. Her voice is kind of gritty and definitely an "older" voice. (I've gotten really spoiled by some excellent narrators-- anything by Simon Prebble, Davina Porter, Jenna Lamia. Jenna Lamia does an amazing job with younger voices-- The Help, Secret Life of Bees, The Adoration of Jenna Fox-- all wonderful.) Despite my initial reaction to Carolyn McCormick's voice, I've listened to each one at least twice and I've been through the first one a third time and am now more than half way through the second. So, I guess I like them. I'd listen to a sample before purchasing if you can.

Well right because the patterns can be a b in the not hard copy. They are somehow so much easier to read on a piece of paper I can carry around (I'm not a knitter but a quilter and they must be real!).

I thought it was the season where he gets reelected despite lying about his ms and then the author has his daughter get kidnapped and writes the new authors into a corner before leaving/being forced out as author?

In a few cases, I have bought both the e-version and hard version. I also consider my kids -- I want certain things lingering on our shelves for them to discover. As such, I will eventually buy the Song of Fire and Ice in hardcopy.

I love lending books and borrowing books, which is why I only use e-reader (really the Kindle app on my phone) for sales on things I can't get at the library and don't need to own b/c I only believe I'll read them once. Otherwise, actual physical books.

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